


Thrive

by ABrighterDarkness



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Communication, M/M, Power of Words, Romantic Fluff, Steve Rogers Feels, Tony Stark Feels, Touchy-Feely
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28659948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABrighterDarkness/pseuds/ABrighterDarkness
Summary: Food, water, and shelter.Supposedly that’s all a living thing needed to be able to live. To exist and keep on existing. From the world's tiniest insects to the largest known beasts. The key to every one of them’s survival came down to those three things.But there was a difference between living and existing, wasn’t there?  More to the world and life than simple survival? It made sense, then, that living, thriving, required more than the bare minimum necessary for survival.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13
Collections: POTS (18+) Stony Stocking 2020





	Thrive

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [ralsbecket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ralsbecket/pseuds/ralsbecket) in the [stony_stocking_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/stony_stocking_2020) collection. 



> I hope that you enjoy this little stocking stuffer!! 
> 
> I loved your short prompts so much and I worked all three of them in!  
>  **2a)** Expressing love languages  
>  **2b)** Steve's kink is Tony's mouth  
>  **2c)** Tony's kink is Steve's hands

Food, water, and shelter. 

Supposedly that’s all a living thing needed to be able to live. To exist and keep on existing. From the world's tiniest insects to the largest known beasts. The key to every one of them’s survival came down to those three things.

But there was a difference between living and existing, wasn’t there? More to the world and life than simple survival? It made sense, then, that living,  _ thriving, _ required more than the bare minimum necessary for survival. 

A man could hypothetically live a long life so long as those three necessities were provided. But could he do it alone? Technically, yes. 

But there was a reason herds, packs, and colonies structures existed throughout the various creatures in the world. Connection and affection and the sheer sense of safety.

Humans were no more meant to thrive in an entirely solitary existence than the great many other beings of the world. Perhaps not for basic survival, but to live and thrive it was just as essential.

Touch was an odd thing, though. 

A strange thing that made so much sense and no sense at all. Not really. Not when one took into account the mind and body’s craving, its  _ need _ for this odd, odd thing. 

Lips and faces and bodies and hands. To help or to hurt. Sometimes to heal. Touch could be love or hate or a manipulation of either. 

Tony could admit that he was familiar with the necessity of touch. And of how touch could be used in a wide variety of ways. From lust to true affection. For control and harm. And everything in between, really. He had his experiences with his fair share of all of the above. He was intimately familiar with each of those categories.

For the life of him, though, he couldn’t pinpoint why it was different now. So very similar to the connection of touch he had experienced before, yet so very different. 

It wasn’t the first time hands had squeezed his waist affectionately while gently guiding him to the side so the owner could reach something that Tony had been blocking. Nor was Tony inexperienced with the effect of hands kneading the knots and tension from his back and shoulders. Hands had gripped his hair in anger, in lust, and to soothe before now, though admittedly the latter hadn’t happened in some time. Before now, that was.

Technically speaking, there was no real difference at all. Nothing, at least, that should stand out on its own as significant.

But dear god, those hands.

Hands that Tony had watched tear apart solid steel with minimal effort. Without a grunt of effort or a grimace of pain. That could crush and break and destroy and be no more worse for wear in the aftermath. 

And yet, touched and held Tony with such reverent care. 

There was no risk of hurt or harm or damage under those hands. Not for Tony. Only the soothing, almost reverent strokes of broad palms and trailing fingers over his side when they curled together, comfortable and waiting for sleep to take them. Or down his back in slow, even sweeps as he was hugged tight. Just long, artist’s fingers stroking through his hair, oftentimes stilling long enough to massage stress-induced tension from the muscles just beneath Tony’s scalp. Gently cupping his head or his face when they kissed. Slow and easy, or intense and heated. 

No matter Tony’s previous associations with touch--the good, the bad, and the ugly--Steve’s touch was always, had always been different. Tony knew, from a technical standpoint, he didn’t need that touch, those hands, to survive. He’d gone so many years without already and he could do it again, if he had to. Maybe Tony didn’t need that touch to exist but maybe that was one of those differences between living, just simply surviving, and actually thriving. 

Admittedly, it had taken him a while to figure it out but Tony had slowly come to learn that Steve didn’t articulate himself very well. Struggled with it. Could never seem to find a way to put what he thought or what he felt into cohesive sentences. The decades’ worth of culture and colloquialisms that he’d missed certainly hadn’t helped but Steve had quietly admitted in the uninterrupted safety of their bed, that it was a struggle he’d had long before the ice and the serum. 

It was different, Tony learned, when Steve was on the field or in front of a microphone. In those times, it wasn’t about  _ Steve’s _ thoughts or  _ Steve’s _ feelings. In many ways, Steve was as removed as he was present in those instances. When he was handing out orders and even when he was gently calming terrified civilians. It wasn’t about Steve, not in those times.

Steve instead spoke through his hands. With a pencil or a brush to paper or canvas, turning the ever churning thoughts that he didn’t know how to turn into words or how to verbalize into beautiful--sometimes terribly so--images with a stunning flair for detail. His hands spoke in place of his words when he would pat Clint on the back, hand lingering long enough to squeeze his shoulder fondly. Or when he took the time to patiently take Natasha’s instructions and learned to braid her hair, far better and more intricately than any of them had anticipated him doing. Something Tony noticed seemed to equally amuse and bemuse the woman. 

As tactile as Steve was, he very obviously tried to not touch any of them if he was in an off-mood, hands curled into tight fists and poorly hidden in the way he crossed his arms in front of him. Sometimes, he avoided the habit entirely, seeking silence and solitude in the gym instead. Those days when he didn’t quite trust himself, for one reason or another. Words didn’t come any easier on those days but touch seemed even more difficult. 

He still touched Tony though. Still sought him out and reached for him, holding more tightly, more desperately but no less carefully. Somehow, even when he didn’t trust himself, he seemed to trust Tony. But it was in those times, those moments when he was both most guarded and left completely open, that Tony learned that Steve thrived with him too.

If Tony thrived under Steve’s touch, Steve blossomed and settled under Tony’s words. 

Tony had always known that, like touch, words were a thing that could be used under any number of circumstances. They could lift and affirm as easily as they could devastate. They could defend and protect as quickly and surely as they could eviscerate. Whichever way they were used, they left marks much longer than touch ever could. 

He was careful with words. No matter how he chose to use them, he was mindful of that fact even when it seemed like he was reckless with them. 

He was careful with them then, too, at first. Especially following their disastrous first meetings, one of the rare times in which those words had gotten away from entirely. And had landed true to leave a painful mark. 

Tony hadn’t been sure how Steve would take more from him. If he could trust Tony’s words, both in context and that there wasn’t more damage to come. But Tony didn’t have the same struggles that Steve had with finding the words needed. Careful or no, it was easy, sometimes scarily so, to find words he wanted to say. Words to forgive and move forward from first impressions. That sometimes led to a dampness to blue eyes but had those hands hold Tony that much more reverently in their wake, as though just maybe some old wounds might finally be trying to heal. Truths that brought endearing pink tints to Steve’s ears and cheeks no matter how many times they were said. Which, given the sheer adoration Tony tended to feel toward that blush, he spoke those truths  _ often. _

It worked, though, for them. Tony spoke the words Steve struggled to find yet needed to hear. Steve showed by touch and affection in ways Tony hadn’t known he needed so viscerally. 

Maybe not to exist, not as a part of basic survival, but needed all the same.


End file.
